*grins* "Of course the mission has succeeded. We've just lost the only way to restore the parallel universes to normal." *rises from seat* "What did you say?!" "There's no question that the Gurlugon was the singularity that represented the warp in the parallel universes. But the only way to restore space as we know it wasn't destroying the singularity. The solution was to capture the singularity, perform a counter-unitary conversation via the Koppelthorn Engine, thereby dispersing the wave function to its state before convergence..." "....." "Anyway, the disappearance of the singularity means the disappearance of the only method to restore space, too." "Who are you?!" *sneers* "To borrow Olga's words, I'm not the Mei Ling you know. But no hard feelings, okay? I was just following someone's orders to complete a certain objective." "Someone? Who?" "My husband." *smiles cheerfully* "I believe he's called Solidus in your universe." "Solidus?!" *slowly points at the wall* "Oh, speak of the devil..."

Just then, the wall exploded. Debris poured from the gap. Dust enveloped the area. And Solidus Snake, clad in a powered suit, stood in the middle.

"Kept you waiting, huh?" *leaps into Solidus' arms* "Honey!"

I dove for Solidus. He fired a missile from his snake hand. A dazzling flash. An explosion. I was thrown against the wall. I lost consciousness momentarily. By the time I managed to get to my feet, I saw Solidus cradling Mei Ling and escaping through the hole he'd just blown in the wall.

In the end, I couldn't keep up with Solidus. Otacon and I discussed what to do next as we stood in our half-destroyed hideout. If they were telling the truth, we'd just lost the way to restore the balance of the parallel universes. But there still had to be something we could do.... Finally, Otacon spoke.

"What about Olga?"

It wasn't a bad idea. The Olga we'd run into at Big Shell seemed to have a good grasp of the situation. She might be able to come up with some kind of solution. There was just one problem. Where could she be? I told Otacon my concerns, and he nodded with confidence.

"I have an idea..."

A few days later...

"So, what's your skill?"

A beautiful black woman with a slender build was sitting in front of us. She was too cheerful. She laughed far too often.

"Do you really thing this is going to work?!" "She has to be on the lookout for information about Gurlugon. She'll show up." "But all we've gotten so far are weirdos! Like that old man whose skill was back flips and sliding, and..." "Yeah, he was funny!" "Hey!"

Obviously, Otacon was getting a kick out of the whole scene.

"Relax. Let's wait a little bit longer." "Next!"

The door opened. Lo and behold, in walked Olga.

Back in the remains of our hideout, we explained the situation to Olga. After hearing our full account, Olga told us that there was still a way out.

"It's true that the Gurlugon singularity might have been erased, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of singularities in all of the parallel universes have been."

A glimmer of hope flashed through Otacon's eyes.

"You mean there are other singularities?" "Most likely. But their forms and locations in the parallel universes are unknown. They won't be easy to find." "We have some data about Gurlugon. If we analyze its pattern, scan the vicinity of the strange attractor with VR, maybe we can..."

Otacon and Olga continued their technical discussion. The end result, said Otacon, was settling on a method to find the singularities of other parallel universes by continuously and finely adjusting the wave function parameter of the VR system to mimic the unique pattern generated by a singularity.

In other words, it looked like I'd have to make through a series of VR constructs. Preparations were made faster then I expected. I returned to the seat of the VR system.

"I'll tell you as soon as I locate the singularity. Until then, I want you to continue clearing VR stages. But be careful. I don't think Solidus will just take this sitting down. You may run into traps. Stay alert!"